Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered CountryReleased: December 6, 1991

Watch the latest video:

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY - film reviewBy Mark Geraghty

After the disappointment of STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER there was uncertainty about whether or not Paramount would invest in any additional feature films with the cast of the original television series. Fortunately, Star Trek’s 25th anniversary was coming up and the studio believed there was an opportunity to capitalise on that event to warrant producing a sixth film adventure. Paramount turned to Ralph Winter to produce the film, as Harve Bennett left the studio between the release of the fifth and sixth films under rather acrimonious circumstances.

In his 2009 book ‘The View From The Bridge’, STAR TREK VI’s Director – Nicholas Meyer – recounts how he had failed to inquire about Harve Bennett’s involvement in the sixth film at the time he was brought on to the project by Paramount studio chief Frank Mancuso.

For the previous year, preoccupied as they were with internecine power struggles within the studio, Paramount encouraged Bennett to develop and revise his own proposal for a sixth Star Trek movie, one that featured young Kirk, young Spock, et al., during their early days at the Starfleet Academy.

Having strung Bennett along month after month, Paramount abruptly stipulated that he produce yet another film with the old cast first and then (maybe) they would move on to his young Trek story. Bennett was furious that the studio had unceremoniously abandoned his laboriously worked-out idea in favour of that last squeeze of the orange … Feeling betrayed, Bennett left the studio.

The departure of Bennett from the Paramount lot left Winter as the most experienced person within the studio at pulling a Star Trek film together. Winter had co-produced STAR TREK IV and STAR TREK V with Bennett and was well placed to bring the production together on a tight time-frame and a limited budget.

The studio was quick to secure the services of both Leonard Nimoy and Nicholas Meyer. Meyer’s writing and directing career had received major boosts from his involvement with STAR TREK II and STAR TREK IV and his contributions had been credited with keeping the Star Trek movie franchise alive; especially his efforts on the second film. Meyer and his writing partner, Denny Martin Flynn, were brought on board the project to write the screenplay, while Meyer was attached to direct.

The story was, at first, developed by Leonard Nimoy based on conversations he had with Meyer about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nimoy had wondered what the STAR TREK universe would look like if the Klingon Empire was forced to seek help from the Federation due to a catastrophic environmental accident. The parallel to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident was obvious and in the best tradition of STAR TREK allowed the producers to tell a story about the Enterprise crew that possessed a great deal of social relevance. The benefit of such a relevant social message gave Meyer and Flynn the opportunity to tightly plot the story and create a mystery thriller that provided all seven original cast members with screen time to delight every fan of every character.

The catalyst for the story is the discovery by Captain Sulu, of the USS Excelsior, that Praxis, a key planet for the production of the Klingon’s power, has been destroyed in a massive explosion. George Takei had lobbied long and hard to have his own ship and he is finally rewarded with the Excelsior. Takei’s screen time benefits greatly as a result of this promotion to the captaincy. He has scenes on his own and is also brought back in throughout the course of the film as he works with the crew of the Enterprise to assist them in their efforts to discover the culprits of the hostile actions that have been undertaken throughout the course of the story.

The story really gets underway once the audience learn that Spock has secretly been brokering peace negotiations with the Klingon Chancellor to save his people and forge a peace that will reshape the entire quadrant of space. In an attempt to raise awareness of the film’s release as part of the 25th Anniversary, Leonard Nimoy had also agreed to reprise the role of Spock in a two-part episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION called ‘Unification’. This two-part story was very similar to the story of the sixth film, except Spock, who is seventy years older, has made his way to the Romulan home world to broker a deal with elements within the Romulan Senate who have expressed a desire to re-join with the Vulcan cousins. The episode was one of the most watched in the show’s history, but the story fell flat as its conclusion failed to provide the spectacle, sentimentality or emotional punch worthy of one of STAR TREK's most beloved characters.

A short, but great 'Making Of' featurette about STAR TREK VI.

In an historic mission, Spock “volunteers” Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew to be the escort through Federation space for the Chancellor and his entourage. Kirk is somewhat incredulous with Spock at first but grudgingly accepts being volunteered. Upon rendezvousing with the Klingons, Kirk extends an olive branch and invites them to dinner aboard the Enterprise. The dinner doesn’t go as well as it should and the two parties bid farewell in the knowledge that there is much work to do … Captain Kirk and Christopher Plummer’s General Chang are especially snide toward each other, acting like two old warriors who have been stripped of their chance to settle differences through a bare-knuckled fist fight.

Meyer’s direction of his own screenplay is extremely tight and is a reflection of the limited budget he had to work with on the film. In adjusted monetary terms, Meyer had less money to deliver the sixth film than William Shatner had to deliver the fifth, but this enhances – rather than restricts – the finished product. Meyer and cinematographer Hiro Narita stay focussed on the characters with a lot of torso and head shooting and very rarely do they pull-back for the big master shot. Narita, through budget necessity, also kept the lighting on the sets very low in an effort to differentiate and disguise the fact that the movie was using many of the standing sets from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. The result is a claustrophobic film that suits the story material extremely well, as character action and reaction makes its way toward the solution of the mystery that drives the film’s plot. Cinematographer Narita publicly commented on the creative challenges upon the film’s release:

I thought it should have a patched-up, heavier, more claustrophobic look as compared to the open, well decorated set we had to work with, but that was beyond my control … I knew the production designer, Herman Zimmerman, was brought in because he’s done other Star Treks, and because he knew how to deal with existing sets and so on, but I felt he wanted to be very faithful to the look that had already been established. So I decided to challenge myself to see what I could do within all these limitations. The challenge on my part was to create something new, or at least slightly different, partially using existing sets. In some cases, I succeeded in making it very different, in others, I didn’t, maybe partially through lack of imagination on my part. Sometimes I was overwhelmed by how little I could do.

The film’s editors also play a role in this process, with William Hoy and Ronald Roose taking over from Peter Berger, who had edited the two previous movies. To that point, Hoy had limited experience as a feature film editor, but had worked on ‘DANCES WITH WOLVES. He has subsequently gone on to a wonderful career and has edited a number of Zack Snyder films including WATCHMEN and SUCKER PUNCH. Ronald Roose had not worked on any large-scale productions up to his involvement with STAR TREK VI and has been in and out of the industry since his involvement with the film.

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY was well received critically and performed strongly enough at the box office to provide Paramount with a 100% profit on its investment. The film was judged to be an appropriate valedictory for the seven main STAR TREK cast members, who had inhabited their roles for a quarter-of-a-century. As with a great many STAR TREK stories, there is always a question of whether or not STAR TREK VI is genuine science fiction?

There are many science fiction fans who would argue that ‘Trek’ is its own genre, with a mythology that mixes elements of many different story-telling content and methods to deliver its own special brand of ‘humanistic’ tales. STAR TREK VI certainly fits that description. It’s a political mystery action thriller that takes familiar characters and places them in a situation they have never before encountered. The story, while set in the 23rd century, is very late 20th century, with its parallels to the fall of the Soviet Union and its Chernobyl-like cataclysm to kick off proceedings. It also addresses the short-comings of the main crew, acknowledging that in Meyer’s version of STAR TREK the main protagonists may not be as evolved as the Roddenberry version of STAR TREK. The biggest challenge for STAR TREK VI as a piece of science fiction is its desire to pander rather than stimulate. Given the story emphasis on the Klingons there was a chance for the Enterprise crew to interact with their alien foes of 25 years in a new and different way, but Nicholas Meyer chooses to imbue his Klingons with Shakespeare and have them act in much the same way as humans. The same goes for the crew’s final scene on the Enterprise Bridge. Meyer chooses for Kirk to quote from PETER PAN. Sure, it’s a great story, but don’t these seven characters deserve their own dialogue? Perhaps it was more expedient and cost-effective to fill the script with this type of writing, but there is a degree of laziness in substituting quotes from other authors as dialogue in your own screenplay and Meyer goes too far in STAR TREK VI.

The final film of the original STAR TREK cast is not an especially good piece of science fiction as the introspection and self-discovery of its main characters is designed more as sentimental musings. There is some enlightenment at the end, but, again, it is designed more to capitalise on the 25th Anniversary of the STAR TREK franchise rather than any character arc specifically designed to carry Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov, Uhura or Sulu forward with any great meaning. Disturbingly, fans of the franchise were given more character growth and insight in the much-maligned STAR TREK V than they are with this film. What makes STAR TREK VI a better-than-average TREK film is its execution. Everything is done better than the previous entry and, after STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY is regarded as the next best movie to feature the original series cast. Given how challenged the production was by Paramount’s financial constraints, it bears some consideration about how good the film could have been with more time to develop the story and more money to fully realise the final adventure of the crew from the Starship Enterprise.